


The Ripples of Change In Your Eyes

by CynSyn



Series: Is This The World We Created? [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Aziraphale Loves Crowley (Good Omens), Crowley Loves Aziraphale (Good Omens), Eyes, Fallen Angel Crowley (Good Omens), Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), Love, M/M, POV Crowley (Good Omens), Please Don't Copy to Other Sites, Post-Canon, Realization, Romantic Fluff, The Ineffable Plan (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 07:23:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,201
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19848340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CynSyn/pseuds/CynSyn
Summary: In the weeks following the thwarted Armageddon, and subsequent conversations that followed, Crowley and Aziraphale found their lives drastically the same, yet slightly different.





	The Ripples of Change In Your Eyes

In the weeks following the thwarted Armageddon, and subsequent conversations that followed, Crowley and Aziraphale found their lives drastically the same, yet slightly different.

To the world, everything was the same. But between them, they knew better. Everything and nothing was changed. Everything old was once more new, yet still containing within it the familiarity and comfort of a worn-in pair of shoes, but shinier.

Crowley didn’t have a name for it. That wasn’t to say that a name didn’t exist. It did. He just refused to say it and had yet to find an appropriate alternative.

He watched Aziraphale as he ate his lunch. Truly, this was one of his favorite things. As he discovered early on in their arrangement, eating quickly had afforded him the time to enjoy every little wiggle and sigh as the angel slowly savored each nibble. And while he knew that now, without a shadow of a doubt that his desires were reciprocated, a 6000 year habit was hard to break. He sipped his coffee and enjoyed the show.

Aziraphale was love in every sense of the word. He loved deeply, infectiously, and in ways that had saved everything that ever existed. That, in and of itself, would have been more than enough. But that paled in comparison to the tiny things that added up. Aziraphale loved the Earth and all of his charges upon it. He didn’t just love them, he _appreciated_ them. He spoke with such reverence and compassion to all he met, as long as they weren’t trying to purchase a book. And even then, he could have been a lot worse about that. Crowley had requested it once, actually.

 _“No!”_ _Aziraphale said firmly._

_“Why not?” Crowley countered, with all the cunning of a nefarious toddler._

_“It wouldn’t be right.”_

_“Then you’re going to have to start selling things if you want to run a book shop.”_

_The angel huffed. “Crowley, I refuse to continue this conversation if you’re going to continue to stack the deck against me.”_

Oh, how he loved his angel. So full of righteous indignity over the tiniest slices of delight he carefully cleaved from the world. Crepes, books, marshmallows, wine, tea, ducks, playbills, brioche, tartan…

 _Wait, ducks? Even ducks? Must do,_ he thought. _He loves everything._

_Even me._

Crowley never really could figure out how that happened, actually. Obviously, Aziraphale loved everything in an angelic way, but how he had managed to gain something more intimate and precious, reserved only for him, he couldn’t fathom. He wasn’t complaining, mind, but rather fondly infatuated by the whole ordeal. Or, at least, he was now. He used to worry about what it could do to an angel to love or be loved by a demon. Now, he couldn’t imagine their world without it.

There was a burden to knowledge of worldly things, he thought. Knowing what was right wasn’t quite so simple. Tiny ripples, ever so small, formed from the best of intentions in split second hopes for accomplishment, rarely stayed that way. They grew, ever expanding in every direction, evermore the possibility to break the calm stillness in their path.

**_Splash_** **.**

An apple bobbed along in the water.

He remembered standing on the wall of a garden, the first time he had ever looked into those eyes. They held within them such innocence back then. Eyes, once so pure and wholly blue, the color of the Heavenly sky above. Now they were somehow all the colors of Earth itself, showing something different depending upon when one looked to see the position of the rotation. Variegated hues of deep blue oceans, clear still pools, lush green forests, rich dark soil, warm beige sand, majestic grey mountainsides, and pale silvery storm clouds, all warm and holy under the light of an angel’s Grace and love for all creatures, great and small.

_“I gave it away._ ”

**_Drip_** _._

A drop of blood broke the stillness next, breaching the surface and sinking slowly.

That beautiful, ridiculous angel. He just gave it away, his own sword, immediately, not putting a shred of thought to consequences past that immediate love and desire to help these humans in his charge. In a way, it was the first crime of passion.

Luckily for Aziraphale, She must have been in a good mood that day, he thought.

Crowley didn’t mean to fall. He only ever asked questions. Were questions so bad? How could someone blindly following orders show anything but hollow obedience? If that was what She wanted, why have them perform any tasks at all? Without understanding, without knowledge, without the ability to enact the decision, would it even be a life? Maybe they really _had_ gone native. He couldn’t fathom how the rest of the angels in Heaven could stand existence like that. There was no life there. No color. No flavor. No style. It was so cold and sterile. He never belonged there, and he knew it.

Asking questions to gain answers. Maybe no one but Her could or should know everything, but surely there were some things. Wasn’t it better to be chosen than to take love by force or default? Wasn’t it better to know love was given freely and not simply expected? To choose devotion because it was good and soft and right and warm? Just like Aziraphale. He never belonged there, either, Crowley thought.

Aziraphale, the celestial equivalent of a down comforter next to a tray of biscuits and cocoa. A good book and a glass of wine. A heart that doesn’t strictly need to beat, but does so anyway as a testament to the devotion he feels for those he loves. Crowley watched as his angel took another bite, drinking in the heady perfume of every choice that brought them to this table at this time. Such a perfect bastard of an angel, so full of love and tea.

Crowley considered for a moment all that he would never have known had he not asked questions. Never had he before been so glad to have Fallen. Without his Fall, there would have been no time in Eden.

_“Funny if we both got it wrong, eh? If I did the good thing and you did the bad one.”_

**_Splish_**.

 ** _Splash_**.

Broken bits fell together from a freshly sealed hole in the wall of a garden.

_Oh, Bless it,_ he thought. _It really **is** ‘ineffable,’ isn’t it?_

Oh, how he hated that word. In all this time, he had yet to find the perfect replacement. But there it was, and he simply could not deny it anymore. He scoffed, both inwardly and, accidentally, outwardly.

“Are you quite all right, my dear?” Aziraphale asked, dabbing his mouth with a napkin, his eyes meeting Crowley’s gaze once more.

“Never better,” Crowley nodded, sighing gently.

“Really?”

Crowley cocked his head to the side. “Quite.”

Aziraphale remained unconvinced. “You seem lost in thought.”

Crowley smiled softly, but fully, from his teeth all the way up to his eyes, which were happily traversing the angelic terrestrial expanses staring back at him. He leaned his chin upon one hand, taking Aziraphale’s hand in the other. “I’m simply marveling in the wondrous world I see through your eyes, Angel.”

**Author's Note:**

> This is a stand-alone piece, but it also exists after Apologies and Epiphanies in this series. 
> 
> There may or may not be a chapter from the POV of Aziraphale, but I'm really not sure yet if I want to work on that or on something different.
> 
> Inspiration for the eyes comes from a tumblr post about Michael Sheen's eye color. https://afandomfarfaraway.tumblr.com/post/186232609972/heymaybe-you-can-help-me-out-here-try-as-i-may-i


End file.
